There was an X class solar flare yesterday, and the stream of high energy particles has hit the earth. In this animation looking at iron and showing the sun’s magnetic fields, you can see the active area rotate in to view then flare:
Here’s a plot of the earth’s magnetic field as measured by the GOES East satellite …
That graph probably doesn’t need a lot of explanation to see something whacked the earth hard. Here’s another view of the field as the satellite moved relative to the sun over the same period – normally it’s a nice doughnut shape:
SWPC has issued alerts, and auroras are probable this evening. How far south they are visible is always hard to judge, but worth venturing outside and looking, especially from North Georgia northwards. Here’s the SWPC bulletin:
The SWPC dashboard (link below bulletin) has an aurora prediction tool. The University of Alaska has a pretty good tool, but it hasn’t updated yet (as of 3pm ET) with the new data.
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